Reports claim the U.S. is becoming less of an influence on the PC market as developing countries emerge

The signs of economic downturn are showing up in many places around the United States form large companies laying off employees by the thousands to the bust in the housing market leading to significantly increased numbers of home foreclosures.

The lagging economy is evident in the technology industry as well and shows in the significant layoffs coming from industry giants like Dell and Motorola. The PC industry is feeling the softening economy in the terms of fewer computers shipped in the United States.

According to research firm IDC worldwide PC shipments in Q1 2008 grew by 14.6% to 69.5 million units. Estimates for the quarter were 13.2% growth, so the industry exceeded expectations. Despite growth in PC shipments worldwide, the U.S. market slipped to a year-over-year growth rate of only 3.5%.

IDC reports that the U.S. share of the worldwide PC market fell by more than 2 points to 23% compared to the same period in 2007. This drop is showing that the U.S. is becoming less of an influence and emerging markets in developing countries are becoming more important for PC makers. The top five PC makers in the world according to IDC in order are HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba.

At the same time the top five PC makers were seeing drops in shipments in the U.S. Apple was shipping more systems. InformationWeek reports that Apple shipments grew 32.5% to one million units compared to 762,000 Macs shipped in the same quarter last year. IDC also released a report recently showing that Apple was now in the top five U.S. computer makers with a firm hold on the number 4 spot.

The gain in U.S. market share by Apple could be attributed to the often more affluent Apple buyers. With Mac systems costing more than similar PCs, the typical Apple buyer tends to be more affluent and possibly less affected by the slowing economy in America.

Comments

Threshold

Username

Password

remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

quote: According to research firm IDC worldwide PC shipments in Q1 2008 grew by 14.6% to 69.5 million units. Estimates for the quarter were 13.2% growth , so the industry exceeded expectations . Despite growth in PC shipments worldwide, the U.S. market slipped to a year-over-year growth rate of only 3.5%.

This post seems like a desperate attempt to create a conneciton between apples shippment increase and some sort of PC shipment decrease when in fact there is no such connection not to mention the fact that PC shippments actually didn't slip.

Lets say Mac had a 5% share of the market last year, for estimation purposes. Then, total sales would be 20 times 762,000 at 15,240,000 units. 13.2% of that figure is 2,011,680. Which is larger than the 238,000 extra mac's sold by a wide margine; therefore, Unit sales in the US grew by 1,773,680. This would mean other computers had over a 7:1 sales ratio based on the increase in sales.

Therefore, the figures left out of this artical and the percentages presented give a very distorted picture.

In other words, there is a decrease in the growth of PC shipments here in the USA.

Might have something to do with Vista. Don't take my word for it; take the word of all my clients I do business with.

To be fair, this recent install of Vista I am testing, I turned off Superfetch, and noticed the stupid endless hard drive activity dead, responsiveness back, and not having to wait as long for the computer to boot. And, per 3rd party sites, since Microsoft couldn't be bothered to note this on their site, I revealed the hidden cd audio device.

I am beginning to suspect that Shane McGlaun procured a cute guy holding an apple for Jason Mick to convince him to do his homework for him. Shane just swapped "Jason Mick" with "Shane McGlaun", it seems.

It's funny how if you write anything about Apple you are either called a hater or a fan boy. I am neither, the simple fact is that I don't care about Apple one way or the other. I owned a MacBook once, I hated it. I own an iPhone and love it. Give me the choice between a Mac and a PC and I'll take the PC every time. I'm rather indifferent to brands of computers on the whole. I roll my own.

Can you honestly tell me that an article titled "PC growth falls, Mac growth increases" doesn't draw any premature conclusions for the reader?

quote: The gain in U.S. market share by Apple could be attributed to the often more affluent Apple buyers. With Mac systems costing more than similar PCs, the typical Apple buyer tends to be more affluent and possibly less affected by the slowing economy in America.

So Mac buyers are richer? PC's are the poor man's machine? I love Macs just as much as the next man (Macbook Pro = win), and PC's have a purpose (Gaming FTW), but I don't expect to see any bias in the news articles I read.

How about you don't bias Mac's or PC's, then you wouldn't be considered a hater or fanboy. No one said it's an easy line to walk, but your a journalist for god's sake.

No, I wouldn't call you a "hater" or a "fanboy". The most accurate term is perhaps "shill", but that's just a tad too severe.

This article and the one written by Jason Mick recently, when you strip away the verbiage, essentially convey to the reader:

"Apple products not as bad or unpopular as you thought. Here why don't you buy some? Everyone else is doing it."

Even if your intentions were not to bolster sales, the articles still had (or, rather, may have) that effect. If that were stripped away, what would be left? The effect of transmitting some truly uninteresting and useless information to a phlegmatic audience? I just don't see the point. And taking into consideration that both articles have featured some numerical inaccuracies, dubious conclusions, disreputable citations, and problems of basic logic, perhaps you'll forgive me for calling your motivations into question and insinuating semi-facetiously that Jason Mick wrote your article on your behalf at the price of sex with a handsome, young, coquettish buck seductively presenting an apple.

How do you figure that? Bolster sales of Mac's I mean. Last time I looked there wasn't a diehard following of Apple lovers frequenting these forums. ( I know there's a few out there).

If you ask me, DailyTech post's articles that are going to get comments. Sure they use some catchy lines and but it's more or less the feedback that results from it all that's the main thing. There are just certain topics that people zone in on more then others.

I've heard that word used a couple times today .. What the hecks a Shill? Before today I'd never heard of the word.. so curious.

Where? On DailyTech? I hadn't seen the word once before I made my post, nor anytime after. So, if you are suggesting that I was simply parroting others' sentiments, you are mistaken.

As to arguments in your first paragraph, why would a sensible person preach to the choir? What would be the sense in targeting pro-Apple propaganda to a demographic that already enjoys and purchases Apple products when you have an anti-Apple crowd out there ripe for the picking? That's the group in which they take the most interest, I assure you.

If you don't think articles like these, dissimulated advertisements presented as legitimate new items propped up against spurious or questionable sources and data, have any effect on the average, highly suggestible, easily manipulated person, then you are terribly naive. Although, I will grant that Dailytechers may be so entrenched in their pro-PC feeling that they would never even begin to think to defect to the other side.

So, I believe that you're either overestimating the intelligence and/or imperviousness to suggestion of the Dailytech crowd, or the sense and/or knowledge of those would might be inclined to hire a Dailytech shill to advertise to said crowd or both.

And I will also admit that Shaun and Jason probably are not shills, but that leaves me wondering what their motivation for posting this crap may have been.